Life As We Knew It
by PinkPoodle543
Summary: Ellie thought about running out of the house and forgetting all her stuff but she couldn't do that. She needed to tell somebody.    Even if that somebody was Paige.     Ellie/Paige Oneshot! Review please!


**A/N: I'm not sure if I like this story. I thought it was going to be so awesome but now I think it just sucks xD Anyways, leave comments, tell me what you think ****J**** Nothing too harsh though.**

Paige slumped her shoulders in boredom as the teacher droned on and on about….well she wasn't really paying attention to _know _what the teacher was saying. What she did know was that if this lady didn't shut the hell up she'd go insane. How long can this go on for?

Finally, the bell rung to go to their ending class, and then finally, after that, Paige would be free. She didn't know what she'd do after school; for some reason she'd been having less and less things to do. Maybe she'd hang out with Hazel.

As if on queue Hazel, in all her glory, began to walk next Paige, instantly chatting.

"Oh my God, guess what?" Hazel asked excitedly, grinning widely.

Paige looked at her friend in mild interest. "What is it, hon?" She said, with a small sigh.

Hazel stopped in front of Paige, clasping her hands together. "Jimmy and I are back together!" She announced, squealing happily and jumping up and down.

"See, I told you, you guys would get back together. You should listen to me more often." Paige hinted, walking into class.

Paige sat down in her assigned seat; next to Hazel and Spinner.

Mr. Simpson, the computer lab teacher, took attendance and then stood at the front of the room, holding up papers.

"Okay class, today we are starting a new project." Insert series of groans here. "I've assigned for you to be in groups of two-Yes, _I've_ assigned them; don't give me that look Gavin." Mr. Simpson addressed to Spinner, who scoffed and crossed his arms, an "Aw, man" escaping from his lips.

"Your assignment is to make a Power point on any topic of your choice as long as it is appropriate." Mr. Simpson said, passing out a piece of paper that had all the rules and guidelines on it.

Paige looked at it in interest. It seemed easy enough.

"Okay, now to pairings. Hazel and Ashley, Gavin and Terri…"

Paige didn't listen to the rest. She rested her head on her hand; it sucked that she and Hazel couldn't be partners.

Suddenly something nudged Paige's arm. Paige snapped out of her thoughts and looked up to see Ellie looking at her with her red head tilted in amusement, dressed in her normal punk/gothic attire.

"What?" Paige asked irritably.

"Um, we were assigned as partners?" Ellie said as if Paige was the most dumbest person alive.

"Oh, uh, right." This could not be happening!

Ellie sighed and pulled over a chair to sit down on, next to Paige. "What is our topic going to be? We need it to be approved by Mr. Simpson."

Paige sighed. She was beginning to get a head ache. "I don't know and I don't care."

Ellie glared at her in annoyance and sighed again. "Well, we can have the topic whatever we want. What are some things that interest you?"

"Shopping." Paige answered automatically.

"_What? _Shopping? Paige, we can't do a Power Point on shopping!"

"Why not? Mr. Simpson said we could do it on anything."

"Yeah, but, shopping? Really?" Ellie shook her head. "Pick something else."

"Ugh, who knew you'd be so bossy?" Paige sighed. "Fine. Um, how about ….real life problems, such as: polluting, abuse, drinking, rape, etcetera."

Ellie looked at her, biting her lip. It wouldn't be such a bad idea. "Alright, fine. What ones are we going to cover?"

Paige shrugged. "I don't know. I guess we'll just wait and find out." She smiled and raised her hand. "Mr. Simpson, we have our topic."

Mr. Simpson raised his head from the papers he was looking at from his desk. "Okay." He grabbed a pencil. "What is it, so I can mark you two off the list?"

"We want to discuss real life happenings. Like the issues teenagers deal with." Paige nodded.

Mr. Simpson smiled thoughtfully, nodding a little. "I think that'll be a good topic." He quickly crossed off their names.

Paige turned to her computer and logged on, Ellie doing the same beside her. She went to Google and typed in: "Daily Problems happening with Teens."

Many links came up, but after searching she finally found a good one that had a big list of things:

-Violence

-Teen Suicide

-Smoking

-Drinking

-Drugs

-Cutting

-Teen Pregnancy

There was a lot of others but Paige decided to stick with the most common ones. She nudged Ellie with her elbow and pointed to the screen. "I found some stuff that we can research."

Ellie leaned over to look at her screen. Her green eyes read down the list but paused on a single word, biting her lip. She shook her head and cleared her throat; She wouldn't think about that now. "I don't think we should do so many topics at once."

Paige looked at her, her brow furrowed. "Why not? This is perfect! We could probably get _extra credit _for doing so many things."

"Yeah, but…. I just think that It'll get too confusing and we won't be able to keep track." Ellie persisted stubbornly.

Paige rolled her eyes, scoffing. "Fine, Eleanor. But only take off one thing."

Ellie glared at her when she called her Eleanor but shook it off and pretended to read down the list again. "Um…how about cutting?" She asked hopefully.

"No way! I think that'll be way too good of a topic to take out. Choose a different one." Paige argued.

It took all of Ellie to not fix a murderous death glare onto the blonde. "I just think it's too sensitive of a topic."

This caused Paige to laugh. "Ellie, all of it is sensitive subjects. Here, lets take off smoking because most people do that anyways."

Ellie sighed, slumping her shoulders in defeat. "Whatever." She turned back to her computer and began to type furiously.

Paige smiled, glad to have had her way.

*After Class*

Paige followed after Ellie quickly, matching the red head's pace.

"So, hon, I was thinking you could come over to my house and we can work on our project more. After all, we only have a week to finish." Paige prompted, glancing at Ellie.

Ellie looked at Paige suspiciously. "Why your house?"

Paige looked confused. "Um, does it matter who's house we work at? As long as we get our project done right?" After Ellie said nothing she continued. "Oh, come on; The more we work on it, the faster we can get it done."

Ellie sighed. "I can't."

Paige raised an eyebrow, though, she wasn't all too surprised about Ellie's answer. It's still annoying though. "Why? Is it because you're too much of a wimp to come to my house? Grow up, Ellie, I'm not going to kill you." Paige rolled her eyes, and pushed open the large doors that lead outside, walking away from Ellie in annoyance.

Ellie winced and looked down. For some reason Paige being mad at her bothered her. What else was she supposed to tell the blonde? That she couldn't come because her alcoholic of a mother was too unstable to do anything for herself? Ellie _needed_ to be there for her mom.

She pushed open the same doors Paige went out of and went the opposite direction, beginning to walk to her own house slowly.

"_Wait…why should I hurt my grade because of a mother who wouldn't even realize I'm there anyway?" _Ellie thought, biting her lip. It was true. She shouldn't have to be there for her mom when she wasn't even there for her own daughter.

Making up her mind, she turned around and began to fast walk to Paige's house.

As Ellie walked up the stone steps of the Michalchuk household, a nervous pit formed in her gut. What if Paige decided not to let her in?

Ellie was just about to ring the doorbell when the door opened out of nowhere. There stood Paige, wearing a bright pink tank and short jean shorts, her blonde hair falling loosely around her shoulders.

"How'd you know I was here?" Ellie asked, startled.

"The window? What do you want?" Paige asked in her normal bitchy tone, her head tilted to the side slightly.

Ellie decided to return the favor. "To work on our project? Why else would I be here? To actually hang out with you for the _fun_ of it?" She said sarcastically, rolling her eyes, while crossing her arms and shifting her weight to her other leg.

Paige smirked, crossing her arms as well, a snarky remark about to slip out of her mouth like poison when all of a sudden, Dylan stepped beside Paige, grinning at Ellie.

"Who's your friend?" He asked, motioning over to the redhead.

Paige glared at her brother in irritation. "Dylan, this is Ellie. Ellie, this is Dylan."

"Nice to meet you Ellie." He smiled kindly and Ellie said a quiet hello back.

"I was just about to go pick up the pizza. How about Ellie and you go upstairs and work on your project; I won't be long." He said to Paige, while grabbing his car keys off the rack.

"Fine. Ellie, come on." Paige said, leading Ellie upstairs.

Ellie almost had a heart attack, walking inside the house. It didn't really seem like a house-more like a mansion! It was humongous; all the furniture looked so expensive.

She followed Paige upstairs and into her room. Paige's room was nice sized with a big bed and posters of the latest celebrities hanging up on the walls.

Everything was so different and new compared to Ellie's house. Her house was a little small, but big enough for her family of three. (Well, now two since her dad was off over seas.)

Paige plopped down on her bed and picked up her hot pink laptop. Ellie hesitantly sat down besides her.

Paige plugged in her flash drive that held their information and the beginning of the slide.

"Ugh, come on. This thing is so slow." Paige rolled her eyes in annoyance and sat the laptop down on the little coffee table besides the bed, while it loaded.

"What do you want to do while it loads?" Paige asked Ellie, glancing over at the redhead.

Ellie shrugged. "I don't really care." She said quietly to Paige.

There was an awkward silence for a while until Paige finally spoke. Her voice was quiet and a little guarded.

"Listen, I'm sorry for flipping out today when we were leaving class." She sighed. Apologies are _so_ not her thing.

Ellie looked at her in shock, stuttering there for a moment. "Err, it's okay?" It came out more of a question.

"No, it isn't. I'm so used to getting my way that I totally blew up at you for no reason." Paige put her hands in her lap.

"Paige, it's okay. Really." She forced a weak smile. Paige apologizing to her was so out of character that it was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. Shifting awkwardly, she bit her lip and cleared her throat. "Is it done loading yet?"

Paige looked over at the screen and put it back on her lap. "Yep. Lets get started." She smiled and looked over at Ellie, who smiled back.

"Girls, the pizza is here!" Dylan shouted downstairs. It had been almost forty five minutes since he had left. Paige and Ellie mounted down the stairs. "Sorry, I'm late. They screwed up on our order, twice! I mean, come on! Who can't remember pepperoni, black olives, mushrooms and _extra_ cheese? And then you know what? They made me pay for it!" He shook his head in aggravation and grabbed some plates from the cupboard. He handed them to Ellie and Paige.

Paige fought back a giggle and took a plate, Ellie taking a plate beside her.

Paige and Ellie sat down at the table and passed around the pizza box.

Ellie looked at the food and felt instantly guilty. Here she was having a good meal when her mom was probably puking her guts up in the toilet. She bit her lip and tried to shake her head of the thoughts.

"What's wrong, hon? Don't like pizza?" Paige asked in amusement, her eyebrows raising.

"Oh," Ellie shook her head. "It's not that." She smiled reassuringly and took a bite just to prove her point.

Paige shrugged. "Whatever you say." She said, taking a bite from her slice.

Shortly after they all finished eating, Ellie and Paige headed back upstairs to work on their project.

Paige sat back down in her spot on the bed and picked up the laptop, moving it a little so they both could see the screen. It was pretty small so Ellie had to kind of lean on Paige just to see it.

"Okay, so what do we got so far?" Ellie asked.

"Hmm," Paige slid through the power point. "Looks like we just have cutting left." She smiled. "This should be easy."

Paige began to type,

"Cutting is something people do when they're too insignificant to handle their issues."

"What?" Ellie almost choked.

Paige rolled her eyes. "I'm _kidding_." She said, pressing the backspace button. "You really need a sense of humor."

"That, Paige, is not humor! What you typed isn't even true!" Ellie snapped angrily, indicating to the screen where the words had been.

Paige gave her a confused look. "Ellie, I-"

Ellie stood up, cutting her off. "Listen, I have to go. I'll see you at school." She grabbed her bag and tried to make a clean exit out of Paige's room.

Frankly, it didn't work that way.

Ellie's boot caught on the edge of the coffee table and she sprawled to the floor, her bag and it's condiments spilling all over the carpeted flooring.

"Shit." Ellie said as she fell. Her eyes widened at the sight of her bag everywhere. She quickly regained her bearings and reached for one important thing….

But Paige had already beaten her to it.

"E-Ellie….What is t-this?" Paige asked, holding up the compass, it's sharp tip crusted with dried blood. Her eyes were staring at the reddened tip, her face a mixture of shock and sorrow.

Finally she met Ellie's gaze.

"Nothing." Ellie said all too quickly and tried to snatch the compass away from Paige, who pulled it back.

"I want the truth." Paige set her jaw, giving Ellie a look. "We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way." It was supposed to come out with more confidence but it didn't even come close.

Seeing the bloodied compass made her feel sick and all she wanted to do was hug Ellie and tell her everything would be alright….but she couldn't do that. Not until she knew the truth. "Ellie, please…" She whispered quietly.

Ellie didn't meet Paige's eye contact, it remained on the floor. She bit her bottom lip, fighting back tears. Why Paige of all people to find out about this?

Ellie thought about running out of the house and forgetting all her stuff but she couldn't do that. She needed to tell somebody.

Even if that somebody was Paige.

Slowly and hesitantly she rolled up her sleeves, revealing the scars and cuts. Tears unthinkingly rolled down her cheeks, and but quickly wiped them away.

"What your thinking is true, Paige. I'm one of those people who are too insignificant to handle there problems." She said quietly, trying to push back her tears.

"Oh, Ellie….I'm so sorry." Paige whispered, fighting back tears. "If I had known I would have never had said that.." She said softly, gathering Ellie in her arms.

Ellie's first instincts were to pull away and run but it felt good to be held in someone's arms.

She needed to know that someone cared; that someone for once wasn't going to leave her.

She inhaled Paige's soft scent; she smelled like vanilla. Slowly and hesitantly she returned the hug, sniffling.

"Shh…it's okay." Paige soothed, stroking Ellie's red hair. "Everything is going to be okay."

"No, it won't, Paige!" Ellie cried, pulling back as if something awakened inside her. "Nothing will ever be okay! Don't you get it? I'm a_ freak_! Everything I ever thought was going right turns up to be the worst thing in my life and I turn to the compass ..."

Paige tried to speak but Ellie cut her off.

"I _need_ it! It's like smoking; once you start you can't stop." Ellie shook her head and looked down at her scars. "And nobody seems to care."

Paige felt for this girl. Ellie was literally going through hell, it made her feel guilty for all the times they had fought.

"Ellie, that isn't true…" Paige said softly, moving closer. "_I_ care. I don't know why I never noticed. But it's like when your mad then I'm mad, if you're sad then I'm sad. It's a pattern and I'm beginning to feel very confused on my feelings for you."

Ellie fixed a glare at Paige and gathered her stuff, rolling down her sleeve.

"Save it, Paige. I know that isn't true."

Paige stood up so she could be eye level with Ellie. "If it weren't true then why would I have said it?"

"Because you're not one of those people." Ellie shot out, not meeting eye contact.

"Says who?" Paige answered, taking Ellie's hand in her own and stepping closer.

Ellie pulled her hand back. "I don't need this." She said, storming out of Paige's room.

Paige followed after calling her name but Ellie ignored her.

Once she was outside, Ellie began to walk faster, trying to get away from Paige.

It wasn't that simple however.

Paige latched onto her arm and pulled her back. "Ellie, hear me out." She insisted, practically begging for Ellie to look at her.

"I like you, Ellie. And I know that sounds crazy; I'm still trying to figure this stuff out, myself. But the feelings are there. I can feel them-"

Ellie held up her hand, cutting her off. "Enough with the mushy shit, Paige, get to the point." She glared.

Paige sighed. Did she have to draw it out? But she knew what she had to do to make Ellie believe her.

Before she could react, Paige grabbed Ellie in her arms and kissed her lips gently. She felt Ellie tense and then relax against the kiss.

Ellie didn't kiss back but it wasn't like she refused it either.

When Paige broke the kiss she stared at Ellie in shock. Part of it being that Ellie hadn't pulled away, and that she had actually done that! Paige blushed, putting her hair behind her ear, nervously.

"S-Sorry….I-I…." She stammered, stepping back.

Ellie shook her head, biting her lip. What just happened was very new and strange to her. "Paige, we… we can't…_couldn't_ work out." She looked down. "I mean…we're both females…."

"So? El, I don't care. I don't care what people think or say. I like you and that's all that matters." Paige said softly, grabbing Ellie's hand again. "We can work this out."

"Together?"

"Together."

Slowly they both smiled.

*Four Days Later*

Today was the big day that Ellie and Paige did their project. They had worked for days, nonstop working. Paige had decided to grant Ellie's wish and not do cutting-instead they put back smoking.

Hey if Ellie was happy then Paige was happy.

They were last to go but that was good; save the best for last, eh?

They ended up getting an A on it which made Paige squeal in delight.

It hadn't taken long for people to find out Ellie and Paige were dating; most people had assumed anyways.

From then on they had spent most of their days together, just hanging out sneaking kisses.

Ellie had stopped cutting, but Paige knew it was hard for her. Sometimes Ellie would seem sad; either thinking about her mother or the pain would sink back in and she'd feel the urge to cut.

Paige stopped her though; each night they would talk on the phone for hours.

As long as they had each other, nothing would go wrong.

For once, Paige was not bored.


End file.
